


High Road, Low Blow

by Sharadethia



Series: Towards the Encroaching Darkness [2]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Bar Fight, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, So here we are, Substance Abuse, Xenophobia, my friend asked me what arison would do in a bar fight, what's canon and what's fanon? the world may never know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-13 02:42:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16884120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharadethia/pseuds/Sharadethia
Summary: Commander Arison Shepard will not start a fight. But she will absolutely end it.





	High Road, Low Blow

Arison was not one for clubs. Parties, she rather liked, since they usually consisted of people she knew and trusted, but there was something about being in a club, in an environment meant only for losing control that she instinctively found discomforting. The only times that she ever managed to truly enjoy outings to the clubs that her crew patronized were after dosing herself with one of her stims and then drinking before ever leaving the ship. The stims helped her stay attentive and energetic as people expected her to be and the alcohol let her thoughts, which tended to revolve around how she had to always uphold some sort of decorum, quiet to a whisper until she had more in the club. It was only then that she could actually enjoy herself.

  
Joker had been talking about shore leave for weeks, complaining about the mind-numbing torture that was scanning planets and discussing with EDI what he called “the merits of getting fucking plastered.” Arison had teased him that he should release his autobiography with that title, only to find herself sucked into an only half-teasing conversation about what Joker would or would not be able to say about Arison herself in such a book. They settled on the fact that the less he said, the less likely she was to make sure that he was never allowed to fly another ship again.

  
The rest of the crew had been getting restless, as well. Even Tali, who was more at home on a ship, any ship, than the rest of the crew, had been casually mentioning wanting to get planet-side for a while. The crew’s comments did not go unheard by their commander, who, although she hardly ever allowed herself to sleep, let alone relax, held no one else to such a standard and felt that holding anyone else to her standards would be cruel.  
This meant that the moment Arison saw a lull in activity in the system they were scanning, she ordered Joker to bring them back to the Citadel for a two day long shore leave. The moment that command was uttered, and Joker began to haul ass toward the nearest mass relay, there was instantly a change in the crew. It was not that they began to slack off at knowledge that they would soon be disembarking. Rather, everyone was clamouring to finish their projects and leave the ship in perfect condition, the way their commander preferred; this was not done because they feared Arison. Rather, it was because everyone aboard respected Shepard, and she knew each and every member of her crew. Every one of her crew had had sleepless nights where they found their commander inspecting the ship, and once she spotted them, she took time to speak with them, learn about them, and try to assist with whatever was keeping them awake. This meant that she had their respect and, most importantly, their undying loyalty.

  
The moment the Normandy was in sight of the Citadel, Arison was made aware of certain plans which Joker and Vega had been concocting.

  
“So, it’s almost the night-cycle on the Citadel,” Joker informed his commander after calling for her on the comm. Arison heard a pair of heavy footsteps approaching behind her and instantly recognized the owner. He always carried himself without attempting to silence his footsteps. In fact, it almost seemed like he walked louder than he needed to. As an infiltrator, Arison could walk silently when she needed to, and it seemed almost ridiculous how loudly Vega made an entrance.

  
“And?” she asked Jeff, ignoring the approach of the other Alliance soldier.

  
“We were thinking of taking some downtime, going to a club, Lola. You and Scars should join us,” Vega said from a bit behind Arison on the bridge.

  
“Besides, you’ve been working yourself to death,” Joker added, crossing his arms.

  
Before Arison could argue otherwise, EDI, who was rapidly becoming almost-creepily able to predict what lies Arison would give about her health, offered, “You have not slept more than 21 hours in the last week. You have averaged two point eight hours of sleep per night since last Monday.”

  
“Jesus, Lola.”

  
“So, yeah, you definitely need a break,” Joker concluded, non-plussed. “You and Garrus should join us at the club. It’ll be fun!”

  
Arison, making a mental reminder to order EDI to never share information like that again, gave a nod after a moment of consideration.

  
“Alright, I’ll be there. When should I meet you two?”

  
“Us two? It’ll be a lot more than that,” Joker said.

  
Vega followed up with, “We’re leaving in as long as it takes you to get Scars up here.”

  
Arison told both of them that she would be no more than a few minutes and rode the elevator to her quarters. Once there, she ripped open her desk drawer that contained part of her stash in a false bottom. Without hesitation, she dry-swallowed two of the pills. It was one more than she normally took before going out, but the stress of having no-forewarning about the plans had rattled her. It was not only that, but it had been so long since she had spent much time alone with Garrus off the ship, and that thought only made her more anxious. Then, Arison reached for the bottle of brandy on the shelf behind her desk, a gift which she barely remembered receiving, and chased down what she thought might have been two shots, but she had never been very good at estimating a shot size. In reality, she had chased down her old Cerberus stims with about three and a half shots of brandy.

  
The moment she set the bottle back on the shelf, her throat burning and her muscles beginning to twitch from the stimulants hitting her system, the door to her cabin opened. Arison turned around, managing to not betray a guilty look, and saw Garrus standing there in his civvies. In the soft light of the ship’s night-cycle, she could see that his scars really had begun to fade. Though they would assuredly be there for the rest of his life, that did not bother Arison who had considerably more scars etched across her body from Mindoir to Akuze to the Lazarus Project to her recent battles with reapers. If anything, she should have been the self-conscious one, but her scars were a part of her. They told the stories that she never would, and so she had no issue with their remaining existence on her body.

  
“You let them bully you into having fun?” Garrus asked, his amusement obvious in his tone, but less so on his face. Arison was still learning what exactly turian expressions looked like, even after their years of knowing each other.

  
“I’m always fun,” Arison countered, walking over to the turian and giving a rare wink.

  
Garrus cleared his throat and jerked one of his fingers toward the elevator.

  
“They’re waiting, and they were harassing me to get you. Apparently Vega is really desperate...” Garrus paused and tilted his head slightly. “Did you have alcohol already?”

  
Arison motioned to the bottle behind her desk.

  
“I would offer you some, but it’s levo.”

  
Garrus shook his head fondly and simply stepped to the side so that Arison could get into the elevator.

  
“Does this mean I should plan on carrying you back to the ship tonight?” he asked as he joined her and the doors shut.

  
“I’d like to see you try,” Arison teased, knowing quite well that he could lift her with relative ease. Where human bodies had fat and muscle, turians had nothing but whip-cord-lean muscles, and it didn’t help that his seven feet of height gave him good leverage. Arison was tall for a human woman, 5’10, but that did not mean that Garrus did not dwarf her.

  
When the doors to the CIC opened, Arison was genuinely surprised to see that the majority of her crew, even the lower ranking members and those who rarely emerged from engineering, were buzzing around the doors with Vega, Ashley, and Joker blocking the way off of the ship. Arison and Garrus made their way through the small crowd, Tali quickly joining them. A number of people tried to thank their commander for giving them a break, but Arison simply reiterated a number of times that everyone on the ship had earned these two days to themselves.

  
Joker and Vega made sure that Arison was leading the way out of the ship, and she was positive that the people in the docking area were at least a tad bit confused by the almost-organized procession of a couple dozen soldiers that poured into the area.

  
“This is a little uncomfortable,” Arison admitted to Tali, knowing that Garrus would overhear.

  
“They love you, it’s not a bad thing,” Tali said, her bright eyes narrowing, betraying a grin.

  
“They’ll follow you anywhere,” Garrus added, laughter almost breaking into his voice. “Even if it means they can’t be first into a club.”

  
By the time they reached their destination, a number of members had dispersed to do their own separate things, but the moment Ashley had a chance, she went straight to the bar and ordered four drinks, two for her and two for Arison.

  
“Here’s to your hard work!” Ashley said, handing Arison two very neon blue drinks.

  
“You’re sure these are levo?” Arison asked, grinning but suspiciously inspecting the alcohol.

  
“Would that really matter to you?” Tali asked quietly, nearly giggling.

  
Arison did not blush, but she did definitely consume both drinks, one instantly after the other, in order to hide her expression.

  
The atmosphere was more intense than she had expected, but Arison attributed it to the nearing end of the world. If people were going to die, they wanted their last days and weeks to matter, to have been full of life, and she did not begrudge the attitude, even if she didn’t have the ability to indulge as much. It was enough, in some ways, to see her crew enjoying themselves.

  
Tali had begun dancing and was soon approached by a turian who began to dance with her. Ash was drinking shot after shot and animately discussing something with Vega, who was trying to match Ashley’s pace and not exactly keeping up. Joker was sitting down with EDI, probably discussing something about the ship, since they both seemed quite serious. Liara had disappeared earlier on their way to the club, but Arison had long ago decided not to worry about Liara’s personal life. This left the commander and Garrus sitting at a booth, both drinking and laughing about some joke that Arison did not really remember.

  
Her head was buzzing pleasantly and the room, with its pulsing lights, seemed to be gently tilting to her left. Best of all, she had only with the last drink started to feel nauseous. “Oh spirits,” Garrus muttered, eyes locked behind Arison.

  
She wheeled around, expecting something bad, her heart beginning to pound with adrenaline, only to find Vega trying to dance with a human and miserably failing. Turning back, trying to calm her heart down, and feeling suddenly too sober, she found Garrus cackling at the scene.

  
“You’d probably dance like that right now,” Arison teased after slamming back another drink. “So you shouldn’t be laughing.”

  
“I think you’re projecting,” Garrus shot back, leaning forward and giving his best approximation of a smile, which was almost unnerving due to the rows and rows of sharp teeth.

  
“I-”

  
“Prove me I’m wrong,” Garrus said, standing up and holding a hand out to Arison. “Dance with me. If you’re right, I buy you your next drink. If I dance better than Vega, you buy me mine.”

  
Arison knew she would look like an idiot if she danced. She knew that she would no longer be the Commander Shepard that the world so desperately needed if she drunkenly staggered around on the dance floor. She wanted to point out to Garrus that she hardly ever spent any money, so it didn’t matter if she paid for a drink on a bet. She wanted to point out that he got his stipend from the turian military and that the only expensive things he ever purchased were weapons and modifications, and even then money wasn’t really a concern for him either. She wanted to keep sitting and laughing and enjoying herself safely.

  
“Deal,” Arison said, grabbing Garrus’ talonned hand with her weak-feeling fingers. “But first I’m having another shot.”

  
Arison marched over to Ash, who had a couple of unconsumed shots in front of her, talking animatedly to someone new. Arison took one, threw it back, and set the glass back down without Ash noticing. Then, Garrus’ arms wrapped around her waist and he whispered,

  
“Don’t get too drunk, or we won’t be able to have more fun later.”

  
Arison took a deep breath to steady herself before releasing herself from Garrus and turning to face him with an obviously fake stern expression.

  
“Watch yourself,” she warned, not meaning a word of it, and then began to lead him to the dance floor. The moment Tali caught sight of the two, Arison heard her familiar laughter. After sending a pointed half-glare in the quarian’s direction, Arison took a deep breath and began to move to the beat of the music. The bass was heavy, so she let its motion direct her own. It was obvious within a few seconds that Arison had lost their silly bet. Where Vega was making quite the hilarious scene, Garrus was still coordinated, even managing to guide Arison around the dance floor a bit. Once her last shot hit her, though, Arison didn’t mind so much that people could see them. She didn’t mind that she was definitely one of the worst dancers to ever grace the club with their patronage. How long had it been since she had last gotten this drunk? Arison did not remember, but then again everything felt fuzzy and intangible now.

Growing bold and feeling her restricting inhibitions drop away, Arison began to enjoy herself. She even discreetly began to try to rile Garrus up, reaching out to touch his waist every so often, moving her head so that he could get a good view of her neck, things humans wouldn’t have found particularly arousing, but things that turians definitely did.

  
Then it came to the time of night where Arison cursed her Cerberus implants.

  
She was sobering up much faster than any of her compatriots, and she was starting to feel ridiculous again.

  
“Looks like I owe you that drink,” she finally conceded to Garrus after a while.

  
He almost looked disappointed, but he could tell that it was her way of saying she was done dancing, and he respected that. He grabbed her hand into his own and led her off of the floor and to one of the bar-tenders.

  
“The commander here owes me a drink,” he said, waiting for Arison to pull out her credit chit from her pocket. The bartender did not seem fazed, which Arison was sure stemmed from the fact that he had surely seen just about every Alliance rank in the bar, and not only that, but he had surely all seen them do stupid things and lose stupid bets every night.

  
Garrus then ordered two shots, one levo and one dextro, and gave one to Arison. It was a particularly nasty drink, perhaps the worst that she had had in some time. It tasted almost like apples, but just enough like not-apples to raise her suspicions about what the taste was actually supposed to be. It churned her stomach.

  
“I’ll be right back,” Arison said as the shot hit her stomach like vitriol.

  
Garrus gave her a smile and a nod and walked over to talk to Ashley, who was almost incoherently drunk at this point, but definitely enjoying herself. Arison walked briskly to the bathroom where she immediately went to the sink and splashed her face with water. The stims and the alcohol were warring in her system, beginning to send jolts down her spine, and she was beginning to feel like she was going to throw up. After taking a few sips of the tap water and leaning against the wall for a moment, Arison decided that she had had enough of the loud atmosphere and groups of people. If Garrus wanted to stay, that was no problem, but she wanted to head back to her quarters on the Normandy and lay down.

  
The moment she walked out of the bathroom, Arison found that, as usual, her plans meant absolutely nothing.

  
Garrus was having some sort of altercation with a very drunk human man whom Arison did not recognize. The human was trying his best to glare down someone a solid foot taller than himself, his face twisted up into a snarl, jamming a finger up near the turian’s face. It seemed that the man had stepped between Ashley and Garrus, the latter of whom was motioning for the man to calm down, but Arison couldn’t hear what was being said.

  
The adrenaline once again began to shoot through her system, and she walked over to the argument far faster than she normally would have bothered, but with the entire crew there, Arison felt responsible for calming down any problems that arose in case anything broke out. Arison knew her friends would rally, and the last thing she wanted was for her subordinates to be blamed for an all-out brawl.

  
“You’re drunk,” Garrus said, using what Arison referred to as his “C-Sec voice.”

  
“Go back to Palavan, you freak!” was the first thing that Arison heard out of the man’s mouth.

  
“Excuse me,” Arison said, walking straight into the conversation and guiding Garrus back away from the man with a gentle movement of her hand.

  
“This doesn’t involve you!” the human snarled at her, his spit hitting her straight in the face. “You need to stay away from these women and find one of your own! Makes me sick!”

  
Arison wiped the spit from her face and physically stood between the two men. She could tell that Garrus was losing his patience, not that she blamed him at all, but she also knew that he could turn this civilian into a pulp in less than a handful of seconds, and Arison wanted to avoid having to spend the time dealing with C-Sec for the next 24 hours to sort all of this out.

  
“Listen, you’re making a fool of yourself. Go home,” Arison encouraged, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder in an attempt to get through to him.

  
“You were the whore he was dancing with!” the man shouted in sudden recognition, wrenching away from her grasp. Ashley immediately got to her feet, unbeknownst to the human, with her eyes narrowed and her expression dangerous. Arison shook her head discreetly to the other Spectre. She could still salvage this.

  
“This is none of your business,” Arison insisted tersely.

  
A number of eyes were trained on the altercation now, and though it seemed that most people were disgusted by the human’s behavior, that didn’t mean that Arison thought it was a good idea to do anything more than get him to leave.

  
“You need a real man,” the human said with a shake of his head. “Don’t need to be fucking some alien.”

  
“This is the last time I’m going to ask this,” Arison offered as calmly as she could manage. “Please. Leave.”

  
“Are you threatening me, you crazy bitch?”

  
At this point, Garrus’ sub-harmonics were rumbling with what Arison could only imagine was fury, but she trained one hand on him behind her to keep him back. Ashley was standing behind the man, still unseen to him, prepare to kill, and as much Arison was usually patient, this man was one step away from the fight he thought he wanted.

  
“Please leave.”

  
“Whore! I bet he can’t even-”

“Sir, one more word and-”

  
“Shut up right now-” Garrus hissed.

  
The human heard those words and something in him snapped. He grabbed a bottle of alcohol that had been sitting on the bar and smashed it, holding the neck of the broken bottle as a weapon.

  
And that was his last move of the night.

  
Arison whipped the hand that had been holding Garrus back into a fist and punched the man straight in the throat. He made a horrible gasping noise, but the stims were rushing through her now, and everything seemed crystal clear. The world had slowed and Arison watched as her body moved of its own accord after years of training. She pulled his head down onto the bar itself with a sickening crack, and with that he dropped to the ground like a dead man. She knew he would live, she had been careful in her fury, but the people around her did not know that.

  
Arison took one of Ash’s last shots and downed it, trying not to notice the horrified looks people were giving her. Ashley, though she knew that the man was alive, bent down and found his pulse.

   


“He’s fine,” Ash announced as loudly as she could in an attempt to calm down the spectators, but by the time she said that, C-Sec police had surrounded the small group and were checking on the man on the ground.

  
Arison heard the unclasping of the magnetic holds from an officer behind her.

  
“He threatened her first,” Ashley insisted to the nearest C-Sec member, a human woman.

  
“He was harassing her,” someone from the gathered crowd shouted.

  
“We’re going to have to take you into custody until this is all sorted out.”

  
“She’s a Spectre,” Ashley tried to argue. 

  
Arison, now shaking with too-much energy simply shrugged her shoulders and turned to Garrus. “You can probably pick me up tomorrow morning.” At that, she put her hands behind her back and let herself be led off to the C-Sec headquarters. Fortunately, most of the Citadel was asleep, so very few people saw Commander Shepard being led in handcuffs through the halls, and even then she did not look quite like the vids portrayed her anyway. The Commander Shepard the saw looked far more put together, far healthier, and far less drunk.

  
The moment the doors opened to his office and Bailey caught sight of her, he let out the world’s most long-suffering sigh and looked at the officers that had brought her in.  
“So which one of you thought that arresting Commander Shepard was a good idea?”

  
As soon as his words settled into the air, Garrus stormed into the door to the office with Ashley, Tali, and Vega only a few feet behind. All of them looked only slightly less drunk than they actually were.

  
“She nearly killed a man,” the human officer explained, pulling out his omitool to show Bailey pictures of the victim who had probably long since been declared stable and fine.

  
“He threatened me with a broken bottle,” Arison explained once Bailey looked to her.

  
“Why is it that whenever you dock here my blood pressure goes up?” he asked.

  
“Bailey, let her go,” Ashley demanded. “Or I’ll pull my Spectre status.”

  
“I have my own,” Arison reminded.

  
“It was self-defense, Bailey. Let her go,” Garrus insisted.

  
The poor officers who made the arrest watched as their captain got up from his desk, walked over to Arison, and released the magnetic handcuffs.

  
“You’re free to go, but if I find out that you’ve cracked, and he wasn’t asking for it, I’m bringing you back in,” Bailey said as he walked back to his desk and sat down. He rubbed at his forehead. “Please don’t arrest any more celebrities when I’m on shift,” he added to his own people.

  
Arison thanked Bailey before leading the way out of the office. It was a moment until anyone spoke. It was Vega who finally broke the silence with a low, almost-nervous laugh. Finally he said,  
“You fucking trashed him, Lola. Remind me never to mess with you or Scars.”

  
Arison turned to Garrus, since he was the maligned party more than her, but found nothing on his face more than simmering anger. About which part of the night, she could not tell. Her shivers were now from exhaustion rather than adrenaline, and she felt a headache beginning to form at the base of her skull.

  
“I’m going back the Normandy,” Arison announced to the others. “Keep enjoying your night.”

  
Ashley gave a slow nod and departed, and Vega and Tali left with her. Garrus, however didn’t move from his spot at her side.

  
“I would have broken you out,” Garrus said once they were alone in the deserted hallway. “I’m sure they haven’t changed their systems since I worked there.”

  
“They would have eventually let me go,” Arison said tiredly, beginning to walk back to the docking area. “But you should keep enjoying your night.”

  
“Spirits, Arison, what are you talking about? A man almost stabbed you with a broken bottle, and you’re trying to get me to go back and drink?”

  
“I want you, all of you, to have some time to yourselves before we go back to fighting the reapers.”

  
Garrus put a hand on her shoulder, gently stopping her from walking further away.

  
“Arison, what’s going on? Please talk to me. Was it something he said? Because he was an idiot, and you know it.”

  
The stims were leaving her system along with the alcohol. She could not even take a break for herself without it going to hell.

  
“I don’t know when the next time we’ll have a chance to stop,” Arison said after a long moment’s hesitation. “This could be our last shore-leave before we… before a final fight.”

  
Garrus’s gaze softened, that much Arison could tell, and he let out a breath she hadn’t noticed he’d been holding in.

  
“How about we both go back to the Normandy, and you can spend the rest of the shore leave taking some time to yourself.” More softly, he added, “You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

  
Arison almost stiffened at the words. She wasn’t sure if he was speaking about her drugs, the way she was pushing herself, or something else, but she couldn’t argue about it. He was right.

  
“So you’ll come with?” she asked, putting her hand on top of the one he was still resting on her shoulder.

  
“Anything you want. You’re the one who needs a break more than anyone else.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please forgive any canon errors. I haven't played ME3 in a good, long while. Also this fic is pretty old (maybe a year?) so this isn't my best writing, but *shrug* gotta put that content out there!


End file.
